American

Stories
The Ransom of Red Chief
by O. Henry
Lesson Plan
by John Russell
 Introduc4on

This lesson plan is to accompany the American Stories series episode, The
Ransom of Red Chief by O. Henry.
A transcript of the story is included at the end of this lesson to print so
students can read as they listen. Teachers who cannot play the audio from the
website can read the story aloud or have students read it.
This lesson plan is based on the CALLA Approach. See the end of the lesson for
more informa?on and resources on teaching with the CALLA approach. The
following slide shows the five parts of this lesson plan.
Lesson Elements

Prepare
Present
Prac4ce
Self-Evaluate
Expand
Prepare
Introduce the story. “Today we will read The Ransom of Red Chief, by O.
Henry. It is a story about a boy who is kidnapped. What usually happens
when a child is kidnapped?”
Listen to students’ answers. Explain that when a child is kidnapped,
the criminals ask the child’s parents for money. The family pays the
money and the child is returned to them.
Teach the vocabulary for the story.

Teach vocabulary and new concepts

 Vocabulary
ransom – n. money that is paid in order to free someone who has been
captured or kidnapped

carriage – n. a large vehicle with four wheels that is pulled by a horse and
that carries people

paleface – n. a name supposedly used by North American Indians for a white
person.

sling – n. a strap usually with a pocket in the middle that is used to throw
something (such as a stone)

funning – v. joking or teasing someone

Present
Introduce the task to students: “As we read the story today, we will
prac?ce the strategy making predic9ons to help us understand the
story. I’ll show you how to do this.”
Play or read aloud to “would you like to have a bag of candy and
a nice ride?”
Model the strategy: “The first part of the story introduces two men.
The two men need money for an illegal land deal in Illinois. To get the
money that they need, they decide to kidnap the only child of an
influen?al man. The two men drive in to town and speak to the young
boy. They offer him candy. At this moment, I predict that the boy will
accept the candy and go for a ride.”

Explain the task and model the learning strategy
 Make a chart like the one on the next slide. Explain the final
ac?on of the character, then predict what will happen. Do not
complete the outcome category yet.
You don’t know much about the characters yet, so list them, but
do not spend ?me on them yet. Explain to the students that they
will learn more about the characters as the story con?nues.

Explain the task and model the learning strategy

 Predict
Character Predic?on Outcome

The two kidnappers I predict that the

kidnappers will
capture the boy.
The boy I predict that the
boy will take the
candy. I predict
that he will go on a
ride with the
kidnappers.
 Play or read aloud to “Red Chief, would you like to go home?”
Show the chart again and ask students to help you fill in the
Outcome column. See the next slide for possible answers. Explain
to students,
“Our first predic?on was the same as what happened in the
story. We said the kidnappers would capture the boy. The second
predic?on, that the boy would go along with the kidnappers, was
different from what happened in the story. He fought them. It
does not maXer if what we predict does not happen. What is
important is to use what we know about the characters to guess
what they will do. That helps us to focus on the story as we read
or listen.”
Explain the task and model the learning strategy
 Predict
Character Predic?on Outcome

The two kidnappers I predict that the The kidnappers

kidnappers will capture the boy.
capture the boy.
The boy I predict that the The boy hits one of
boy will take the the kidnappers with
candy. I predict a rock. He fights
that he will go on a like a wild animal.
ride with the
kidnappers.
Prac4ce
Prepare students for the next part, “Now it’s your turn. Let’s listen to
some more of the story. As we listen, think about the people in the
story. The storyteller asked the boy, ‘Red Chief, do you want to go
home?’ Take out a piece of paper. Write a chart lis?ng the people.
What do you think the boy will say? Does he want to go home? Write
your predic?on on your chart. Get ready to make more predic@ons as
you listen.”
Ask several students to share and write what they predicted on the
board or screen as on the following slide.
Play or read aloud to “He moved it faster and faster around his
head.”

Allow students to prac?ce the strategy with the story

 Predict (2)
Character Predic?on Outcome

The two kidnappers

The boy

Have students sit with a classmate and say aloud what they wrote
about each character.
Ask students to check their predic?ons and write the events in the
story in the Outcome column. See the following slide for possible
answers.

Allow students to prac?ce the strategy with the story

 Predict (2)
Character Predic?on Outcome

The two kidnappers They will get angry Bill asks the
with the boy storyteller if they
because of his bad can take the boy
behavior. back.
The boy He will keep ac@ng He hits Bill with a
wild. rock.
Have students sit with a classmate and say aloud what they wrote
about each character.
Play or read aloud to “I opened the note and read it to Bill. This is
what it said:”
Ask students to check their predic?ons and write the events in the
story in the Outcome column.
Tell students to add a new row on their chart. The character is the
boy’s father. Ask students to share with their classmate what they
predict the father will say in his note. Give students ?me to discuss
their predic?ons.

Allow students to prac?ce the strategy with the story

 Predict (3)
Character Predic?on Outcome

The father The leXer will say

that the father will
not pay the
ransom.
Play or read aloud to “Very respec]ully, Ebenezer Dorset.”
Ask students to check their predic?ons and write the Outcome on
their chart. Discuss the reasons for the father’s response to the
kidnappers.

Allow students to prac?ce the strategy with the story

 Predict (4)
Character Predic?on Outcome

The father The leXer will say The leBer says that
that the father will the father wants
not pay the money from the
ransom. kidnappers for
taking back Red
Chief.
Ask students to listen again. “As we read the rest of the story, think
about the boy, the kidnappers, and the father. How does the writer
hint about what will happen to each character? Can you predict what
will happen?”
Play or read aloud to the end of the story.
Ask students to share with their classmate. See following slide for
possible predic?ons and outcomes.

Allow students to prac?ce the strategy with the story

 Predict (5)
Character Predic?on Outcome
The boy - Red Chief Red Chief won’t want to go The kidnappers take Red
home. He will escape and Chief home. He does not
run away. escape.
The two kidnappers - Bill Bill will want to pay the Bill and the other
Driscoll and the storyteller father to take the boy back kidnapper take the boy
to his father. back to his father. Bill runs
The other kidnapper will as fast as he can away
want to take the boy back from the town.
to his father. He will want The other kidnapper and
to pay the money. Bill take the boy back to
his father. The other
kidnapper runs away, too.
The father - Ebenezer The father will have the The father holds the boy
kidnappers arrested. and lets the kidnappers go.
Self-Evaluate
Ask students to stay with their partner and talk about the end of the
story: “What do you think about the ending? What about the ending
of this story is humorous?”
Give students ?me to talk about the story’s ending.
Ask, “Now I’d like to ask – what do you think about using this
strategy, making predic9ons, when you read? Did it help you
understand the characters in the story? Did it help you find humor in
the story? Write a sentence or two on your paper to turn in about
how predic@ng helped you today.”

Ask students to evaluate for themselves whether the strategy helped them
Expand
Ask students, “Are there other ?mes when you can predict?”
Listen to students’ responses.
Con?nue, “This strategy is helpful in both reading and listening.
Predic?ng encourages you to make logical guesses about what will
happen in a wriXen or oral text. You try to an?cipate new
informa?on, and then think about why the outcome was similar or
different to what you thought.
You can use predic@ng in mathema?cs, too. When you es?mate an
answer, or guess the answer to a problem, you are predic@ng.”

Ask students use the strategy in other contexts

We present the short story “The Ransom of Red Chief” by O. Henry. Here is Shep O’Neal
with the story.

It looked like a good thing. But wait till I tell you. We were down south, in Alabama – Bill
Driscoll and myself – when this kidnapping idea struck us. There was a town down there, as
flat as a pancake, and called Summit. Bill and I had about six hundred dollars. We needed
just two thousand dollars more for an illegal land deal in Illinois.

We chose for our victim -- the only child of an influential citizen named Ebenezer Dorset. He
was a boy of ten, with red hair. Bill and I thought that Ebenezer would pay a ransom of two
thousand dollars to get his boy back. But wait till I tell you.

About two miles from Summit was a little mountain, covered with cedar trees. There was an
opening on the back of the mountain. We stored our supplies in that cave.

One night, we drove a horse and carriage past old Dorset’s house. The boy was in the
street, throwing rocks at a cat on the opposite fence.

“Hey little boy!” says Bill, “would you like to have a bag of candy and a nice ride?”

The boy hits Bill directly in the eye with a piece of rock.

That boy put up a fight like a wild animal. But, at last, we got him down in the bottom of the
carriage and drove away.

We took him up to the cave. The boy had two large bird feathers stuck in his hair. He points
a stick at me and says:

“Ha! Paleface, do you dare to enter the camp of Red Chief, the terror of the plains?”

“He’s all right now,” says Bill, rolling up his pants and examining wounds on his legs. “We’re
playing Indian. I’m Old Hank, the trapper, Red Chief’s captive. I’m going to be scalped at
daybreak. By Geronimo! That kid can kick hard.”

“Red Chief,” says I to the boy, “would you like to go home?”

“Aw, what for?” says he. “I don’t have any fun at home. I hate to go to school. I like to camp
out. You won’t take me back home again, will you?”

“Not right away,” says I. “We’ll stay here in the cave a while.”
“All right!” says he. “That’ll be fine. I never had such fun in all my life.”

We went to bed about eleven o’clock. Just at daybreak, I was awakened by a series of
terrible screams from Bill. Red Chief was sitting on Bill’s chest, with one hand holding his
hair. In the other, he had a sharp knife. He was attempting to cut off the top of Bill’s head,
based on what he had declared the night before.

I got the knife away from the boy. But, after that event, Bill’s spirit was broken. He lay down,
but he never closed an eye again in sleep as long as that boy was with us.

“Do you think anybody will pay out money to get a little imp like that back home?” Bill asked.

“Sure,” I said. “A boy like that is just the kind that parents love. Now, you and the Chief get
up and make something to eat, while I go up on the top of this mountain and look around.”

I climbed to the top of the mountain. Over toward Summit, I expected to see the men of the
village searching the countryside. But all was peaceful.

“Perhaps,” says I to myself, “it has not yet been discovered that the wolves have taken the
lamb from the fold.” I went back down the mountain.

When I got to the cave, I found Bill backed up against the side of it. He was breathing hard,
with the boy threatening to strike him with a rock.

“He put a red-hot potato down my back,” explained Bill, “and then crushed it with his foot. I
hit his ears. Have you got a gun with you, Sam?”

I took the rock away from the boy and ended the argument.

“I’ll fix you,” says the boy to Bill. “No man ever yet struck the Red Chief but what he got paid
for it. You better be careful!”

After eating, the boy takes a leather object with strings tied around it from his clothes and
goes outside the cave unwinding it. Then we heard a kind of shout. It was Red Chief holding
a sling in one hand. He moved it faster and faster around his head.

Just then I heard a heavy sound and a deep breath from Bill. A rock the size of an egg had
hit him just behind his left ear. Bill fell in the fire across the frying pan of hot water for
washing the dishes. I pulled him out and poured cold water on his head for half an hour.

Then I went out and caught that boy and shook him.
“If your behavior doesn’t improve,” says I, “I’ll take you straight home. Now, are you going to
be good, or not?”

“I was only funning,” says he. “I didn’t mean to hurt Old Hank. But what did he hit me for?
I’ll behave if you don’t send me home.”

I thought it best to send a letter to old man Dorset that day, demanding the ransom and
telling how it should be paid. The letter said:

“We have your boy hidden in a place far from Summit. We demand fifteen hundred dollars
for his return; the money to be left at midnight tonight at the same place and in the same
box as your answer.

If you agree to these terms, send the answer in writing by a messenger tonight at half past
eight o’clock. After crossing Owl Creek, on the road to Poplar Cove, there are three large
trees. At the bottom of the fence, opposite the third tree, will be a small box. The messenger
will place the answer in this box and return immediately to Summit. If you fail to agree to our
demand, you will never see your boy again. If you pay the money as demanded, he will be
returned to you safe and well within three hours.”

I took the letter and walked over to Poplar Cove. I then sat around the post office and store.
An old man there says he hears Summit is all worried because of Ebenezer Dorset’s boy
having been lost or stolen. That was all I wanted to know. I mailed my letter and left. The
postmaster said the mail carrier would come by in an hour to take the mail on to Summit.

At half past eight, I was up in the third tree, waiting for the messenger to arrive. Exactly on
time, a half-grown boy rides up the road on a bicycle. He finds the box at the foot of the
fence. He puts a folded piece of paper into it and leaves, turning back toward Summit.

I slid down the tree, got the note and was back at the cave in a half hour. I opened the note
and read it to Bill. This is what it said:

“Gentlemen: I received your letter about the ransom you ask for the return of my son. I think
you are a little high in your demands. I hereby make you a counter-proposal, which I believe
you will accept. You bring Johnny home and pay me two hundred and fifty dollars, and I
agree to take him off your hands. You had better come at night because the neighbors
believe he is lost. And, I could not be responsible for what they would do to anybody they
saw bringing him back. Very respectfully, Ebenezer Dorset.”

“Great pirates of Penzance!” says I, “of all the nerve…” But I looked at Bill and stopped. He
had the most appealing look in his eyes I ever saw on the face of a dumb or talking animal.
“Sam,” says he, “what’s two hundred and fifty dollars, after all? We’ve got the money. One
more night of this boy will drive me crazy. I think Mister Dorset is making us a good offer.
You aren’t going to let the chance go, are you?”

“Tell you the truth, Bill,” says I, “this little lamb has got on my nerves, too. We’ll take him
home, pay the ransom and make our get-away.”

We took him home that night. We got him to go by telling him that his father had bought him
a gun and we were going to hunt bears the next day.

It was twelve o’clock when we knocked on Ebenezer’s front door. Bill counted out two
hundred and fifty dollars into Dorset’s hand.

When the boy learned we were planning to leave him at home, he started to cry loudly and
held himself as tight as he could to Bill’s leg. His father pulled him away slowly.

“How long can you hold him?” asks Bill.

“I’m not as strong as I used to be,” says old Dorset, “but I think I can promise you ten
minutes.”

“Enough,” says Bill. “In ten minutes, I shall cross the Central, Southern and Middle Western
states, and be running for the Canadian border.”

And, as dark as it was, and as fat as Bill was, and as good a runner as I am, he was a good
mile and a half out of Summit before I could catch up with him.

You have heard the American Story “The Ransom of Red Chief” by O. Henry. Your
storyteller was Shep O’Neal. This story was adapted into Special English by Shelley
Gollust. It was produced by Lawan Davis.

_________________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

ransom – n. money that is paid in order to free someone who has been captured or kidnapped

carriage – n. a large vehicle with four wheels that is pulled by a horse and that carries people

paleface – n. a name supposedly used by North American Indians for a white person.
sling – n. a strap usually with a pocket in the middle that is used to throw something (such as a
stone)

funning – v. joking or teasing someone

 About the CALLA Approach
The Cogni?ve Academic Language Learning Approach (CALLA)is an instruc?onal model for second and
foreign language learners based on cogni?ve theory and research.
CALLA integrates instruc?on in priority topics from the content curriculum, development of the
language skills needed for learning in school, and explicit instruc?on in using learning strategies for
academic tasks.

The goals of CALLA are for students to learn essen?al academic content and language and to become
independent and self-regulated learners through their increasing command over a variety of strategies
for learning in school. CALLA can be used in ESL, EFL, bilingual, foreign language, and general educa?on
classrooms.

CALLA was developed by Anna Uhl Chamot and J. Michael O'Malley, and is being implemented in
approximately 30 school districts in the United States as well as in several other countries.

See a list of language learning strategies below.
Metacogni4ve Strategies
Task-Based Strategies
Task-Based Strategies
Task-Based Strategies
Task-Based Strategies
Task-Based Strategies